Sigh. The guilt. The knot in my stomach. The heartache of knowing that I am an inadequate mother.

No, I didn’t forget my child on the roof of the car. I did not sell him into child pornography or child slavery. I did not force him to converse with me only in Pig-Latin so that his classmates would laugh at him when he started school.

Nope. I failed in a much more important way.

Birthday parties.

Maybe it is just that I became a parent too soon. Maybe there is still time to discover a spacial anomaly that will allow us to remedy the situation. So that we could once again hold our heads high with the other parents who hosted birthday parties for their equally indulged children. Sigh.

We had fun. Or so I thought.

When Jacob was young, we had a swimming pool. And so we had lovely gatherings for dozens of friends with everybody in the pool. I was young enough then to even appear in front of my friends in a bathing suit.

As he aged, we progressed to other types of parties. We had one at an indoor playground with tunnels and ball pits and slides and pizza. We did bowling and laser tag. All with pizza.

It’s true that unlike a classmate of Jacob’s in 1st grade we did not hold his 7th birthday party in one of the fanciest hotels in Geneva, Switzerland, as did one of his classmates. It was quite a doo, actually, with waitresses in little French maid outfits carrying silver trays full of, yeah, pizza. (I’ve always wondered where they’ll hold her wedding.) But Jacob is a boy, and didn’t care a hoot about fancy-schmancy.

Once we had Jacob’s birthday party at a skateboard rink; helmets and pads were required. We indulgent parents want to keep everybody safe, and bubble wrap tends to be somewhat suffocating. We served Pizza, natch.

We only had one real disaster. And that was when the day before Jacob’s 13th birthday party, which had been postponed, John was called out of the country for an emergency meeting. Jacob has never recovered. “Dad missed my 13th Birthday Party,” he sniffed, just this evening.

I thought that was the worst possible child’s birthday fiasco imaginable in an age where parties aren’t done at home, and really all parents need to do is write a check. It’s hard to go too wrong unless the check bounces.

I thought that until today, anyway.

That’s when I learned that there is a whole new type of kids birthday party that will, well, blow away the competition! And we missed it. Sigh. We were simply born too soon.

And, of course, as in so very many things, Texas is leading the way. You see, a Texas gun range will be hosting birthday parties for children as young as 8 years old!

“I don’t know whether anyone has ever tried this before,” said David Prince, who is building the indoor gun range.

Personally, I myself, cannot imagine why no one has ever thought of arming children with lethal weapons, filling them with soda and candy and pizza and letting them go at it. What could be more fun?

Mr. Prince did mention that lots of staff will be around to “help parents supervise.” Boy, that’s a relief.

Because supervising kids parties isn’t really as easy as it sounds. That bowling party Jacob had when he was 8? There were heavy balls falling too close to kids feet, there were shoe rentals (and the fact 8 year olds never know their size) the drinks and snacks to be ordered and kept off the special floor. It’s complicated.

“We’re not just going to have kids running around waving loaded guns and shooting at piñatas,” said Prince, an accountant and gun enthusiast.

Yup, staff assistance will be available. This is handy, natch, when lethal weapons are involved; I’d say it’s worth at least an extra $5, easy. Perhaps an extra $20 if no one dies.

But you know, I imagine that the release form will be a bit intimidating for the parents who actually like their kids:

Yes, I agree to hold Bubba’s Bullet and Billetharmless, in the event that someone blows my 8-year-old child’s head off.

Nevertheless, I think that it’s good to know that entrepreneurs are developing better ways for parents to get a bang for their birthday bucks.

I just hope the staff is good at distinguishing between pizza stains and blood.

I have a great time with that link, MJ. Because the answer is rarely the same. I wrote a post about that a while back: https://fiftyfourandahalf.com/2012/03/31/who-am-i/. I got to be David Foster Wallace for one of my posts, too. He killed himself, although I am confident it was not because he learned that some day my writing (and yours) would harken to his!

On the other hand, you can save a few bucks by not getting the pizza sliced.
Surely an 8year old with a fully automatic weapon has the skill, presence of mind and accuracy to slice his pizza with gunfire?

I think it means that we might as well get rid of the car safety seats, the bike helmets, the other safety gear we’ve adopted over the years to protect our kids. Because stupid people with guns will just get them anyway. Or stupid parents.

To be honest, it took me 27 years to cut a birth day cake with my own hands and that to make my close friends happy. 🙂 In my family, we do not celebrate birth days. We just seek blessing from God and elders of our family and just have a get together with family and close friends. And my birthday falls in between summer vacation. So I do not have much ideas about birth day celebrations, as I do not usually go to their birth day parties, rather I wish them out side. So it’s quite unusual for me, when I see people search for a new innovative way to make that day special. 🙂

I am grateful my two sons (step) are grown and both I and my wife-in-law are sensible aging hippies. Of course, we all live in Texas (woe is me) so some day it will likely be necessary to save our grandchild from one of these birthday parties. But that is okay, his other grandmother is also an aging hippie. He only has one grandparent with azzhat written on his forehead, we will beat him down if he interferes.

Jacob did do a paintball party one year, and there were waivers. Of course, folks don’t generally die if they get hit with a paintball (although they hurt like hell!). People are incredibly stupid, and they are the ones that think this is a good idea.

Kids parties are a big deal but mostly to the parents. I don’t recall having but one myself, so in that case, it wasn’t a big deal to mine. Just wait until the grandkids start having their parties. Grandparents then become like honored guests.

I agree that up to a certain age it is just for the parents. But these days, kids expect a whole lot.
I’m looking forward to being a grandparent (not YET JACOB!!) because I love the contact/no responsibility aspect. I have a great niece and a great nephew and it is wonderful to be an important family member with few responsibilities!

But hopefully, if the parents don’t get it, the grandparents will say, ummm “guns at a birthday party are stupid!”

You know, I saw that article and thought about writing a post about it, but I couldn’t put my thoughts into any coherent arrangement. After this catches on, I’m betting the next big thing for kids’ birthdays will be taxidermy parties.

That is just inexorably sad! I mean kids playing with water guns is easy to digest!
And Bang Bang has always been one of my favorite songs. It’s just so nice to listen to but so heart-breaking at the same time.

Isn’t it amazing? The pressure on parents to let their kids do things is immense. There will be some who go along with this. I imagine we will be reading “tragic” news stories about things that wouldn’t happen if people weren’t so stupid.

Michelle, you may have commented before I changed the song to “Bang Bang” by Cher (couldn’t find a YouTube of Sonny & Cher.